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Husband and Wife Research Team Receives $2.2 Million Grant to Study Speech Effects of Deep Brain Stimulation on Parkinson's Sufferers

May 17, 2012
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More than three decades ago, neurosurgeons first investigated the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS) to relieve severe body tremors in patients battling with the neurological disorder Parkinson’s Disease. In 1997, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) officially approved DBS for tremors. Fifteen years later, its various effects are still not completely understood.

For Diana Sidtis, NYU Steinhardt Professor of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, and her husband, John J. Sidtis, research professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, the mystery of how DBS affected the “low, soft, and breathy” speech of those living with the illness remains a driving force behind their research. Thanks to a $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, they can continue their search for answers.

“Parkinson’s patients have movement disorders – tremors or slowness of movement -- that result in speech problems,” Diana Sidtis explained. “Through previous studies, we found that Parkinson’s Disease is characterized by greater difficulty speaking in spontaneous ‘normal’ conversation, with poorer voice quality and fluency. Yet in repetition, where patients are repeating the statements and words of another, voice quality and fluency are improved. DBS improves voice quality to the same extent that repetition does, but fluency is sometimes reduced. So what remains is how and why this is possible. This is what we are hoping to find out.”

Research studies in the first five years by John Sidtis found that DBS increases global blood flow in the entire brain, not just the basal ganglia, the area of the brain directly related to the cause of Parkinson’s due to a deficiency of the neurotransmitter, dopamine. The lack of dopamine results in a movement disorder and thus the impaired speech. This finding may have significant implications for understanding the effects of the new DBS treatment.

According to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, some 90 percent of the nearly one million people with Parkinson’s experience changes in their speech. In a collaborative effort, Sidtis and Sidtis will spend the next five years continuing their extensive research looking closely at speech patterns of Parkinson’s patients undergoing DBS treatment. Their work thus far has shown that DBS does not have an adverse effect on speech, a common concern among Parkinson’s patients considering this treatment.

“Our goal is to answer basic clinical and speech science questions,” Dr. John Sidtis explained. “We need a better estimate of how often DBS results in greater speech impairment, when it occurs, and how it can be characterized. We need to understand the extent to which DBS-related speech impairments result from changes in brain networks specific for speech and from changes that affect the whole brain. The initial finding that DBS enhances some components of speech while retarding others provides an important step in unraveling inconsistent reports.”
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The Sidtis’ study is conducted at the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, where John Sidtis is director and Diana Sidtis is associate director of the Brain and Behavior Laboratory. The laboratory hosts a number of NYU School of Medicine students as research assistants, with the aim of developing the next generation of speech scientists.

About the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
Founded in 1890, the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development was the first professional school of teacher education established at an American university. More than a century later, the school has widened its areas of study to include art, health, media, music, and applied psychology. NYU Steinhardt is committed to fostering innovative collaboration, a global approach to research and practice, and scholarship related to all aspects of the human experience. To learn more about NYU Steinhardt, visit: http://steinhardt.nyu.edu.